The growth of e-sports and online gaming – combined with better game design and more interactive, immersive, and realistic ecosystems – have unlocked countless new avenues for in-game monetization. However, a long-standing challenge of tapping into the vast potential of this new ‘pay-to-play’ functionality has been how to overcome the complexity of facilitating fiat payments and purchases at a large and fast enough scale to satisfy gamer and game studio needs in terms of cost, volume, processing time, accuracy, and security.
MobileGo (MGO) is an open-source blockchain solution that was launched to address these challenges. MGO allows gamers, gaming studios, and other participants in e-sports and online gaming to overcome issues pertaining to in-game purchases, trades, and other exchanges of value. It was launched in 2017 and is an innovative pioneer in bridging the gap between gaming and mobile payments.
MGO recently announced major updates to its project roadmap. With special emphasis on technology (the “Runescape Era”), community development (the “First-Person Era”), and commercial adoption (the “Open-World Era”), the new updates will help the project move on to several new but critical phases – including open-sourcing of its developer kit, incentivizing project development, and establishing important partnerships with media, technology, and gaming stakeholders – all of which can help bring a much-needed transformation to the blockchain gaming and mobile payments spaces.
Below are some of the more important updates that were released, and you can read additional details on the roadmap update here.
Phase 1: Runescape Era – Q1 2017 to Q4 2020
In 2017, MGO launched its native MGO ERC20 token, a decentralized virtual gamer marketplace, and integrated decentralized online matches and decentralized tournaments with the MGO network.
In 2018, the project established important partnerships, including one with Xsolla, the largest payment provider in the gaming industry. In 2020, MGO partnered with GDA Ventures to restructure the MGO blockchain and build the global MobileGo ecosystem.
Toward the end of 2020, a third-party audit was performed to ensure that the MGO codebase is up to date with all of the latest protocol improvements and security measures in place.
Phase 2: First-Person Era – 2021
2021 marks the beginning of the new MGO ecosystem in which MGO’s enterprise partnership network will be built on the technical codebase that was built over the last four years. Some of the end-goals of the First-Person Era include education and awareness, partnerships with games and game studios, the launch of compatible crypto wallets, and partnerships and integrations with various implementation partners to enhance the MGO user experience as much as possible.
The Global Community Development Roadmap will be launched in Q2 2021, at which time MGO will re-engage with important blockchain, gaming, and media stakeholders. With its new project roadmap and organizational objectives in place, MGO will build on its momentum and will invite new enterprise and corporate stakeholders and will complete integrations with multiple wallets throughout the year to bolster the MGO ecosystem. By Q4 2021, MGO aims to complete a CEX or DEX listing.
Phase 3: Open-World Era – Q1 2022 – Q2 2022
Phase 3 will focus on the growth and commercial adoption of MGO. It will bring about a new era of utility for MGO in which users can make in-game purchases using the MGO token.
In Q1 2022, MGO’s Developer Grant Program will be launched to incentivize new developers to join the MGO ecosystem via grants. MGO payment and coin utility will also be integrated with MGO game properties, and MGO will become an official media partner for select gaming and blockchain-focused media outlets throughout the year.
By Q2 2022, MGO aims to achieve a milestone of having 100 developers in the grant program.
MobileGo is an open-source blockchain protocol built on Ethereum. It is designed to provide fast and secure payment services to gamers, game studios, and other stakeholders in the e-sports and online gaming spaces. The project’s latest roadmap update sets the stage for the next round of growth, adoption, partnerships, and expansion of the MobileGo solutions suite. You can learn more about this groundbreaking project here.